A fundamental shift is taking place in Northern Ireland's peace process in that people expect actions, not words, the Catholic Primate of Ireland claimed today.
Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Sean Brady told the ecumenical Lenten lecture series in Rathfarnham in Dublin that the days of "constructive ambiguity and moral murk" in the peace process were over.
"What is clear is that in the midst of the confusion and disillusionment of the current crisis, we have reached a fork in the road, a defining moment on the journey towards a lasting peace," he claimed.
"And like any defining moment in the scriptures, it is a moment of opportunity as well as challenge. . . . The opportunity to build the peace process and the principles of the Good Friday Agreement on a more certain and transparent moral basis.
"A situation where all paramilitary groups have given up their weapons, their threats and their subversive economies and finally honoured the will of the people for a normalised society and a normal opportunity for life and for living, and where the rest, as they say, will be politics," he said.
Dr Brady said a genuine peace could only be built on truth and not on lies, falsehood and deceit. He said he was directing his comments at those who told lies and deliberately concealed their true intent, activity or corporate personality in the peace process while at the same time insisting they were working for peace.